Generally, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing secure electronic transactionable multimedia financial planning statements.
Financial planning is a difficult endeavor for many ordinary investors. It is such a difficult task that an entire industry has been created to advise investors in their financial planning. In this field, there are two predominant activities which are conventionally undertaken by these entities: planning an investment strategy for an investor, and benchmarking investment options available to the investor.
Planning an investment strategy for an investor can take many forms. In some instances, a financial planner will project the future retirement income needs of an investor and then determine a standard investment contribution that, when projected to future net worth and holdings, equals those future retirement income needs. This process has traditionally been accomplished through investment questionnaires given to investors and personal interviews with the investor to gauge the investor's desires.
Another form of investment planning can take the form of assessing the risk tolerance and investment horizon of an individual investor and determining a financial plan based off of that risk tolerance and horizon. Questionnaires and personal interviews are often used in calculating and assessing these variables. After gathering and compiling this information, a possible financial strategy is presented to the investor. This strategy typically also includes a future net worth and holdings calculation.
Some of the financial advice given by various institutions is tied to product and service recommendations. These recommendations may be based on the advice in the form of formulated financial plans or based off of the articulated goals of the investor. The products or services recommended are typically from vendors or brokers which have arrangements with the advising entity.
Benchmarking investment options and returns are additional services provided to investors by advising entities. Some entities measure the overall performance of an individual retirement plan or fund and compare that performance with other plans or funds in the same space. Others may project that plan or fund against the investor's income requirements for retirement, or compare the plan's performance against the stated goals of that plan. Other entities may create a visualization or analysis of a given plan or fund for comparison with other similar funds or other investment strategies.
Unfortunately, many of these products and services yield suboptimal results. Many consumers have had difficulty understanding the methods involved in calculating these benchmarks and plans, and still others have difficulty understanding the basics of finance or other account management principles. Further, so many of these methods are based off of questionnaires and not dynamically generated in response to the actual holdings of an investor.
No widely accepted or available system exists which allows a customer to have a complete understanding of the current holdings in an investment or other account, know the performance of that account relative to other considerations, learn of recommendations to optimize those holdings, and take immediate action based on that information.
A reliable, effective, and appropriate method of managing a customer's accounts in light of investment advice and objectives will help solve many of the aforementioned drawbacks of financial or other account advising systems on the market. Unfortunately, as has been evidenced above, no such management system has been created.
It should be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that the above structures and others of their kind do not satisfactorily address the informational and management needs of customers regarding financial and other account planning, leaving account holders in the dark when attempting to proactively manage one or more accounts amongst the numerous courses of action available.
Accordingly, a system and method for providing secure electronic transactionable multimedia financial planning statements is provided to enable transactions and provide interactive guidance and interpretation.